42 
A GREAT MILKER. 
A GREAT MILKER. 
The Right Sort of Spirit. —Mr. S. P. Chapman, 
of Mount Pleasant, New York, has a thorough¬ 
bred shorthorn cow, called Ruby. Now the 
said cow is a very fine one, even for a short¬ 
horn : and in the eyes of good judges, would have 
stood fair any time to take a first premium at 
our state cattle shows. At Albany, last Septem¬ 
ber, her owner would not thus enter her; but 
inasmuch as a few prejudiced individuals con¬ 
tinue to assert, (although the contrary has been 
proved a thousand times,) that no shorthorn 
cow can equal a native or grade Durham 
for great milking qualities, he determined to 
test this point with Ruby; so he simply enter¬ 
ed her as a “ milch cow,” to stand her chance as 
a milker among grades, natives, or any other 
breed shown. The competition was more nu¬ 
merous than we ever before witnessed, and yet 
Ruby took the first prize! 
The following is Mr. Chapman’s account of 
her performance at two trials last summer:— 
Ruby, the cow for trial, was kept on grass, 
only, during the experiment and for fifteen days 
previous to each period or trial. 
1st. She was five years old the 10th day of 
April last; is a thorough-bred shorthorn, and 
her time of calving this year was the 27th of 
May. 
2d. The quantity of milk, in weight, for the 
first trial, from the 10th to the 20th of June, 
was 530i lbs. The quantity of butter made was 
20£ lbs. (One pan of milk during this trial 
was lost from leakage, which would have made 
one fourth of a pound more of butter). The quan¬ 
tity of milk for the second trial, from the 10th to 
the 20th of August, was 469^ lbs. The quantity 
of butter was 19 lbs. and 14 oz. The quantity 
of milk given each day of trial and the quanti¬ 
ty of butter made every two days is her given : 
June. 
Milk. 
Butter. 
Aug. 
Milk. 
Butter. 
10 
n 
52 lbs. 14 oz. 
54 6 
| 4 lbs. 8 oz. 
10 
11 
45!bs. 14 oz* | 3 !bs 3 oz. 
12 
13 
50 
52 
6 
14 
i 3 
14 
12 
13 
48 
49 
S I 3 
' 8 
14 
52 
14 
f O 
13 
14 
45 
14 U 
A 
15 
51 
14 
i 3 
15 
50 
14 4 
13 
53 
6 
U 
16 
44 
14 u 
12 
17 
52 
14 
r 
17 
48 
e [ 4 
18 
52 
14 
u 
1 
18 
46 
14 u 
9 
19 
55 
14 
r 
19 
48 
6 < 4 
O 
It will be seen by the statement that the 16th 
and 17th of August, she gave 93£ lbs. of milk, 
which produced 4 lbs. 12 oz. of butter—or 1 lb. 
of butter to less than 20 lbs. of milk. The 
weather was excessively hot during some days 
of the trials, the thermometer ranging as high 
as 90° F. in the shade. 
Ruby has given from the 10th of June to the 
20th of August, a period of 71 days, 3,584£ lbs. 
of milk, being an average of more than 50 lbs. 
per day. During all this time, she had no feed 
but grass, with the exception of two bushels of 
shorts, fed about the first of July. 
Now as to the matter of shorthorns, as well 
as all other kinds of stock, we have invariably 
endeavored to tell our readers not only the 
truth, but the whole truth , without any sort of 
reservation or humbuggery; and we do assert, 
and challenge a reliable contradiction, that the 
shorthorns and their grades, when properly bred 
with reference to milking qualities, have prov¬ 
ed the greatest and best milkers of any other 
breed or their crosses, whatever. It is true, that 
in several districts in England and this country, 
shorthorns are bred for beef alone —their owners 
do not care for milk. Under these circumstan¬ 
ces, they are not good milkers, and no other 
breed would nor could be. Such breeders 
merely let the calves run with the cows four or 
five months to suck what milk they please; 
they are then weaned and the cows dried off. 
By following this course two or three years, 
the best cow in the world would be spoiled as a 
great milker; and so would her progeny ? but 
give us the worst milking shorthorns to be found, 
and by paying attention to their breeding for 
three generations, we will engage to make five 
out of seven of their grand daughters good 
milkers. 
Substitute for an Ice House.— Take a large 
puncheon with one head, and bury it in loose 
porous earth in some shady place ; or for lack 
of such earth, dig the hole larger than the cask 
and fill around it pebbles, sand, charcoal, and 
provide a drain beneath. Make a hole in the 
bottom of the cask, so that it will not hold wat¬ 
er, and leave a space under it of some inches. 
Now take an iron-bound tub, eight or ten inches 
less diameter than the inside of the puncheon, 
with a hole also in the bottom directly over the 
other. Fill the space between the tub and cask 
with pounded charcoal and fit a tight cover on 
top and cover that with a bag of coal after it is 
filled with ice. 
Bouilli.— This fashionable term for a very 
common dish, which sometimes bothers the 
brains of common people, is nothing but the 
French term for boiled meat; so that when 
you see beef bouilli , upon your bill of fair, do 
net imagine for a moment that it means bull 
beef, but simply beef boiled; though perhaps 
you will find it garnished with some herbs or 
vegetables with French names, which are none 
the better for their outlandish appellation or 
French cookery. 
